In August this year, social media – first X, then Instagram – erupted in outrage over the government’s relentless ethanol push. The storm broke soon after the petroleum minister’s celebratory posts announcing India had achieved its 20% ethanol blending target years ahead of schedule. Car and bike owners, already anxious about falling mileage, now feared what this new fuel mix would do to their ageing vehicle engines. Their anger was directed not only at the petroleum ministry or faceless oil corporations but, with particular venom, at one man: Union Minister Nitin Jairam Gadkari, the ethanol evangelist who has driven this national fuel mandate.

This digital outcry found support from unlikely fronts. By the end of August, popular right-wing accounts had joined the digital attack on the Min

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